The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1887-12-20
AMERICA AND IRELAND
A Large Meeting in Washington
City.
RECEPTIoNoF ESMoNDE AND O coNNoR

| WASHINGTON, December 14.-Sir Thomas
Henry Grattan Esmonde and Hon. Arthur
| O'ConEor, leaders OF the Irish home rule cause
| in the English parliament, arrived in this city
this afternoon, escorted by q committee of
! Washington Irish societies, who had gone to
| Baltimore to meet them. The hall of
the temple was brilliantly illuminated
and tsstefully decorated with American and
Irish flags and many huge buntings, while such
appropriate inscriptions as Scotland, Wales
and Ireland Demand Home Rule" American
Sympathy is with Ireland" Coercion is an
Outrage on the Spirit of Human Liberty"
Columbia Greets Gladstone and Parnell,"
ornamented the rtage and walls.
Upon the platform were Senators Sherman,
Palmer, ingalls, and Hawley; Representatives
Collins, Bland, Herbert Cultivate, Foran,
LAWYER, O'Neil, of Missouri, Woodbury., Phe-
Ian, Grain, Kennedy, Parker, Nutting, j. d.
Taylor, and Brown, of Ohio and McShane,
Fred Douglass and Thomas III. WEIGH, head of
the Irish movement in Washington. Senator
ingalls, was expected to preside, but he was
late i'll arriving and Senator Sherman was Sc
lected as chairman. Senator ingalls, appeared
upon the platform shortly after Sherman began
speaking.
Mr.. Sherman said that in appearing here to-
night he was bound to say that he was neither
an Irishman, nor the son of an Irishman, but
the trouble was that his ancestors had come to
this country so many years ago that it was alb
SOluJcly lifllnateflai Wnetner t1ey were IRISH,
English, Scotch or Welsh. He knew one
thing-he was an American [applausel, and as
an American, feeling himself free to speak not
only of matters concerning our national
affairs, but also as to the affairs of
friendly nations, he took pleasure in saying
that he believed he spoke the general voice of
the people of the United States in every part
of the union, when he said to the distinguished
guests that the sympathy of America went
forth fully and heartily in the strong desire
they MIC homo IT 10 in Trn1a 10
the full extent demanded by Messrs. Parnell
and Gladstone. applause.
In conclusion Senator Sherman said:
All we want, aud all we pray for, is that Great
Britain may yield to our Irish brethren what they
desire and give them home-rule and the British
government from that day forth will be stronger
applause.l
MIR. Ingalls,, after the applause with which
he was greeted had subsidized, said two illustri-
Gus Irish members of the British parliament
have crossed the ocean TO tell the story of the
wrongs of Ireland.
eve have assembled this evening" he said,
Gin the shadow Of the national capitol, for the
purpose OF saying, so far as he could voice the
sentiments of the assemblage, that the cause
of Ireland is the cause of America. Great
applause]; that in q deeper and wiser sense it
is not only the cause of the Irish, but of hui
manity itself. We have assembled for the
purpose of learning from these two illustrious
Representatives of Irish sentiment apparently
what has been the result of seven centuries of
oppression of the Irish people by the govern
ing classes of Great Britain, and he said, were
he still more obscure a politician than he was
re should not hesitate to say that if
called upon to choose between expressing
our sympathies for Great Britain or for Ireland
in this contest, no American citizen will long
hesitate as to what his preference shall be. He
did not understand, he said, that Irish repre-
sentatives of home rule desire to interfere with
the unity of the British empire, but Great
Britain should not forget that there is nothing
dangerous and SO improbable as injustice;
Great Britain should not forget that
seven millions of people determined to
be free can never be enslaved;
Great Britain should not forget that three mil
lions of citizens, in the original thirteen colo
MES, reyolted and achieved their independ-
ence under far less PROPAGATION than seven
millions Of Irish people have endured for CEN
turtles. Applause. In conclusion he said:
81 shall never cease to remember that in
that awful speriod, there was not a battlefield
for American liberty which was not illustrated
by Irish valor and consecrated by Irish blood"
Representative Herbert OF Alabama, said
thize more intelligently and moro sincerely
with Ireland than do the people of the south.
The south knows, he said, that whenever
stranger rules the people mourn, and that Is
what is the matter with Ireland.
In response to numerous calls Mr. ingalls, in
troduced Fred Douglass, who said that it was
not his hour. England did not want to know
what Fred Douglass had to say. He was only
emancipated few years ago himself. He was
glad, however, of the opportunity to give color
to the occasion. Laughter.] With every
other American of whatever color or class, he
was an out and out home-ruler
The meeting was then declared adjourned
and as the band struck up lively Irish Jig the
crowd left the hail.